


Like the Stars

by MirandaBeth



Category: Press Gang
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-04
Updated: 2013-04-04
Packaged: 2017-12-07 10:35:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirandaBeth/pseuds/MirandaBeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of "The Last Word", Frazz hasn’t been around much. Lynda wants to know why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I accidentally wrote this while I was writing "Lies, and other kindnesses", so it covers some of the same ground, and sort of serves the same purpose.

By late Tuesday afternoon, the newsroom was unusually quiet.

Lynda pushed her hair back from her forehead, scowling at the hopeless article of Graham’s in front of her. It was worse even than his usual drivel. She suspected that Kenny screened most of Graham’s articles before she even saw them, which meant Graham was even _more_ useless than she’d thought, but Kenny wasn’t here this afternoon. It was his turn at the police station.

He’d been _hours_.

She scraped her hair back and twisted it around a pencil to hold it out of the way, then settled in to rewrite the article. What she _really_ wanted was to force it down Graham’s throat, but there wasn’t time to waste this week. And it was this or edit Sarah’s lead. If she was honest with herself, she was avoiding looking at that again just yet.

She found herself staring at the empty desks in front of her. Even Sarah had deserted this afternoon, as soon as she'd turned in her article. _And_ she’d taken Spike. They were probably settling in at Czar’s by now. Moronic, insisting on making their notes for Sarah's account away from the newsroom. Sarah would have to come back in to type the stupid thing, anyway.

The outside door banging open made her jump. All right, _that_ was definitely not an appropriate tic to develop. She shook her head, determined to focus on the rewrite, but stopped again when Frazz pushed the door open.

Right.

"Frazz, what the _hell_ was that?" she said. "And don’t ask me _what_ , because you know exactly what I’m talking about."

A couple of people glanced up, and then just as quickly busied themselves with their work again. Frazz ignored her, heading straight over to kneel down by Tiddler’s desk and starting to look through her drawers. A surge of anger pushed Lynda to her feet.

"Frazz, we go to print tomorrow. I haven’t seen the horoscopes yet. What made you think wasting all that time today was a good idea?"

Frazz continued to rummage, pushing aside papers and pens and not looking at her.

"Look around you, Frazz. There’s nobody here. Nobody useful, anyway," she amended, making a face at Kate, who’d looked up in an offended sort of way. "Apparently, a _number_ of people feel that a few hours’ inconvenience the other day is a good enough excuse not to work full days. Two of them even cited _bereavement_ leave, can you believe that? They didn’t even know Donald. Like we did, I mean," she added hastily.

Frazz sat back on his heels. "Lynda, did you just call a gun siege an _inconvenience_?"

"My point is that this edition is important! A lot of eyes are on us at the moment, and we have to produce something good. This is an opportunity we won’t get again."

"Yeah?" said Frazz. "I reckon you could tick off another lunatic with a gun if you tried hard enough."

"The newsroom was a _crime scene_ for a completely ridiculous length of time, Kenny’s gone off to have his police interview, he’s probably messing it all up right as we speak, Sarah’s taken Spike to help her with that _stupid_ idea she’s _actually_ insisting on going through with, and Colin’s doctor apparently thinks that even phoning a few advertisers is too much strain for Colin right now, so _why_ did it seem to you like spending the day in a _television studio_ was an appropriate use of your time?"

Frazz stood, and for a moment she thought he was actually going to argue back, but instead he turned and walked into the meeting room, heading for the filing cabinet and starting to search the drawers.

She followed, slamming the door behind them.

"I mean, how did they even find you? _I’ve_ barely seen you this week, I know the police haven’t been able to talk to you yet, so how come some talk show can track you down and convince you to represent us?"

"They didn’t," said Frazz.

"Oh, so you’re telling me that wasn’t you I saw arguing with Trevor Hambly today? You’re telling me you weren’t sitting there explaining to all of Great Britain how lax gun control is responsible for killing one of your mates?"

"No, I’m not," said Frazz.

Lynda curled her hands in frustration. "I don’t get you, Davis! I _know_ you don't agree with me, I know you think a few _white lies_ are too much to ask of my friends." She stopped, frustrated with her loose tongue, and glanced over her shoulder to check if anyone could hear through the door. Frazz calmly opened another drawer of the filing cabinet.

"But you didn’t even argue," she went on, more quietly. "You just disappeared, and then suddenly you’re lying to everyone on national television?"

"I called them," said Frazz.

Lynda stopped. "What?"

He shrugged. "They like talking about gun control, they were bound to pick up our story. I called them, they told me when to come in."

She really, really didn’t get Frazz. " _Why?_ "

"Ah – here it is!" He straightened up triumphantly from the filing cabinet, a video cassette in his hand, and turned toward the door. Lynda took a quick step to make sure she was blocking his way.

"What’s that?" she asked, when no question any more intelligent than _why?_ sprang to mind about the subject at hand.

"Tiddler taped _Ghostbusters_ when it was on," he said. "Dunno why she filed it."

She shook her head. Sometimes, with Frazz, she wondered if she’d entered some surreal alternate universe. "Frazz, you don’t have time for stupid movies! We’ve already had to cut two double pages from this week’s edition, and I _need_ the horoscopes."

"I wouldn’t worry," he said.

"What?"

"About Kenny. I wouldn’t worry."

She was going to keep her temper. She was perfectly capable of keeping her temper. "About Kenny _what_?"

"His police interview. He’ll be fine. You know he’ll do what you told him. He always does."

Lynda felt her face flush at the unexpected jab. "He does _not_ , Frazz. Kenny is perfectly capable of thinking for himself! He just knows when I’m right. Which is always." Frazz just looked at her. "Frazz, he does _not!_ "

"We’re talking about his interview still, right?" said Frazz.

"Shut up, Frazz," she snapped.

Frazz looked at her expectantly. She glared back at him.

"D’you mind?" he asked eventually. "You’re sort of blocking the door."

"Where are you going?" she demanded.

He waved the videotape at her. "Guess Colin’s probably pretty bored, stuck at home. Thought I’d check on him."

She huffed, and stepped to one side, folding her arms as she let him pass. He stopped, though, reaching out for the door handle, and turned to look at her.

"There’s no point in arguing," he said. "You’re kinda like the stars, Lynda. You just… happen."

"You don’t even believe in astrology!" she said, stung.

He shrugged. "No, but… sometimes stuff just happens. Like good luck, or an unexpected trip, or whatever. Or a psycho with a gun tries to kill you. Or Lynda Day makes a decision. All that stuff is just going to happen, and you can’t really do anything about it."

He pulled open the door and walked out. Lynda found herself staring blankly at the spot where he’d been standing. That was just _typical_ of Frazz. He made no sense at all, ever. Surreal alternate universe. Like entering Wonderland, only with less of the talking caterpillars.

He suddenly reappeared, pulled the door shut again, and wordlessly held out a single, typed piece of paper.

She took it from him in surprise. ‘SURVIVING THE NORBRIDGE TRAGEDY: AN INSIDER’S ACCOUNT,’ the header ran, and under that, ‘By Frasier Davis’.

She read it quickly. Full of typographical errors, of course, and with a less-than-sophisticated grasp of the English language, but in a way it was better than Sarah’s version of the same story, which was currently burning a hole in her in-tray. Frazz’s no-nonsense style really worked here. The piece was evocative without being over-the-top.

"You can run it," he said mildly. "But it’s not an exclusive. I’ve done some letters. Kerr said he’d help me send them to the national papers."

"Frazz, I-"

He shrugged again. "I think your plan is insane, and I think it's made things worse for everyone. But it doesn’t really matter what I think. Yeah, it’s a lie to go on television and claim someone I care about is dead, but if that’s the story you want to tell, then I just figured, at least something good could come out of it. Make people think about what happens when you let lunatics near guns. And it’s not that far from the truth really. Could have been true."

He looked out the window into the newsroom. "Stuff never gets to you, Lynda. We're not all like that."

Lynda found her mouth was gaping slightly, and shut it.

"Thanks, Frazz," she said eventually, indicating the piece of paper. "This is- it’s really good."

"I’m not doing the horoscopes this week," he said.

She felt the corners of her mouth tug up into a smile. "Okay, Davis. We run your story. I’ll have to pick it apart, obviously, it’s _full_ of spelling mistakes, and someone needs to give you a crash course in something civilised people know as ‘the apostrophe’, but you’ve done well."

He gave her a tight smile in return, opened the door, and left.

"Frazz," she called. He turned back to look at her. "Tell Colin-" She paused. "Tell him two of the newsagents have phoned to increase their order for this week’s edition, and we have one new supplier."

He stared at her for a moment. "Yeah. He’ll like that."

"Tell him it would have been more if he’d get off his lazy butt and do some selling."

Frazz narrowed his eyes. "I might change the wording a bit."

"Whatever, Davis. Weren’t you leaving?"

She stalked back to her desk, sliding Frazz’s article into her in-tray, and looking over in time to catch the hint of a bemused smile on his face as he closed the door behind himself.

Then she dropped into her chair, pressing her fingers against her temples. It was several minutes before she started work again.


End file.
